Click on the play button to listen to report.

I’m Bob Larson. Yesterday, we were introduced to Jackson Takach, Director of Economic & Financial Research with Farmer Mac, the brawn behind ag lending much like Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac for home buyers. He says foreign trade is one of the biggest financial challenges facing producers with much of the attention THIS YEAR focused on NAFTA …

JACKSON TAKACH … “I was a little sad to see TPP go the way of the Dodo last year. I was hoping that that would be a good way to introduce more trade because, frankly, we have more food here than we can eat and we’re not growing people like we used to. Our population growth has slowed so we have to find mouths to put this great food that we produce into and that’s going to require open trade.”

JACKSON TAKACH … “One of the things we talk about is how close are you to that consumer? Because the closer you get to the consumer, the more direct sales you get, the higher profitability, the higher margins. And, so what I’ve seen is a lot of people are trying to go direct and do farmer’s market, pick your own, those types of things to try and get as close to the end consumer as possible, capture as much of that food dollar as you can. I think that’s going to be the key to make inroads into 2018 going back to profitability for a lot of these specialty crop producers. How close can you get to the consumer? How can you tell your story from the farmer to the end consumer? The more you can do that, the better your profit margins are going to be.”

Farmer Mac provides financial solutions to the ag community, including ag lenders, agribusinesses, and other institutions … that benefit from access to flexible, low-cost financing and risk management tools.